Sterling K. Brown's ‘Washington Black' Limited Series Gets Premiere Date At Hulu
Based on the bestselling novel of the same name, Washington Black follows the 19th-century odyssey of George Washington 'Wash' Black, an eleven-year-old boy born on a Barbados sugar plantation, whose prodigious scientific mind sets him on a path of unexpected destiny. When a harrowing incident forces Wash to flee, he is thrust into a globe-spanning adventure that challenges and reshapes his understanding of family, freedom and love. As he navigates uncharted lands and impossible odds, Wash finds the courage to imagine a future beyond the confines of the society he was born into.
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Brown stars and executive produces the series. Also starring are Ernest Kingsley Jr., Rupert Graves, Iola Evans, Edward Bluemel, Sharon Duncan Brewster, Eddie Karanja and Tom Ellis.
Washington Black is produced by 20th Television in association with Indian Meadows Productions and The Gotham Group. Selwyn Hinds, Kim Harrison, Brown, Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Wanuri Kahiu, Mo Marable, Rob Seidenglanz, Jeremy Bell, Lindsay Williams, D.J. Goldberg, Jennifer Johnson and Anthony Hemingway executive produce. Hinds and Harrison are also showrunners for the series. Edugyan is co-producer.
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a day ago
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‘Paradise' Boss on How Their End-of-the-World Research Sets Up Season 2
[This story contains spoilers from season one of .] By now, everyone should be caught up on Paradise. More from The Hollywood Reporter Emmys Nominations Snubs: 'Squid Game' Shut Out, 'Handmaid's Tale' Only Lands One Nod - Uzo Aduba Surprises Emmys: HBO and Max Score Most Nominations, Apple Takes a Big Bite 'The Last of Us' Season 2 Just Scored a Bunch of Emmy Nominations After becoming a runaway streaming hit when it launched on Hulu in early 2025, the Dan Fogelman-created post-apocalyptic drama then became a linear hit when ABC re-aired the season weekly in the spring. Now, for the trifecta, the Sterling K. Brown-starring saga just picked up four Emmy nominations this week, landing more nods in top categories than even awards experts predicted. Safe to say, Paradise is a hit and people are watching. The Hollywood Reporter previously spoke with executive producer John Hoberg, who wrote the groundbreaking seventh episode, 'The Day.' That penultimate episode of season one flashed back in time to reveal to viewers what exactly happened on the day of the extinction-level event that preceded the beginning of the series. Paradise viewers had been imagining how the show's world ended ever since the twisty premiere. But nothing prepared them for how current it would feel when it was revealed. Paradise opened in a post-apocalyptic world, where 25,000 people were saved from some sort of catastrophic climate event that nearly wiped out civilization. That event, we find out in episode seven, was from a super volcano erupting in the arctic, shattering the ice shelf, melting trillions of gallons of water and triggered a tsunami traveling 600 miles per hour with a wave as high as 300 feet. The coastal cities were wiped out first and global devastation followed. The president, played by James Marsden, and his hand-picked survivors were the only ones who escaped — to the underground bunker-society called Paradise. 'Imagine writing it, it destroyed me for a month,' Hoberg recalled to The Hollywood Reporter about his experience of penning the propulsive hour, which was directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. Read our chat below on all the research that went into 'The Day' and how it informs season two, which is now filming in Los Angeles. *** How did you get to be the lucky one to write this episode? Well, I'm an EP with Dan [Fogelman] so I'm in the room. I was either going to write the second-to-last or the last episode. I will tell you, it wasn't my experience writing on Galavant [the 2015 musical series created by Fogelman] that made them think I should do the end-of-the-world episode (laughs). But it had a lot to do with White House and the Air Force, and those are my obsessions. My wife [Kat Likkel] and I have always written together until this show; she wanted to write a novel and so I took this job with Dan. We have a place up in Solvang and she's like, 'I'm going to take 10 days and dive all the way in up there.' So basically, all I did for 10 straight days was just live in the feeling [of this episode]. It's such a minute-by-minute episode. I've never written this way where I just completely submersed myself in the experience. All season long, we had ideas about what happened, but it still didn't prepare me for what I saw. Good. Why did you place this episode as the penultimate one of the season? There are so many mysteries in Paradise, right? Always a new card turned over. We like to answer questions the whole time, because we don't want to frustrate an audience. So we hint at what happened, but don't say specifically. It's why Xavier [Brown] was so angry at Cal [Masden]. The show at its core is the mystery, and then tied around that mystery is, 'What happened out there? We know something cataclysmic happened, what is it?' We knew for Xavier's character that we wanted to hold that back, because you could tell he liked Cal. But something happened. If we had revealed much earlier [that Xavier blames Cal for his wife's death in the event], then we'd be giving up that mystery as well as the mystery what happened to the world. So it kept drifting. There was talk about it being the fifth episode at one point, but then it felt right that it would be the one before the end. So you finally have that mystery resolved, before getting into the murder-mystery resolve. you spoke to in order to research the end of the world, like the architect who designs cities who wrote you a 40-page dissertation, and experts on nuclear fallout and environmental catastrophe. He said you all were worried it might put you on government watch lists, because of what you were Googling. As far as we know, that didn't happen! Though I feel like my computer runs a little bit hotter than it needs to, so maybe they're in there now. (Laughs.) He did say that you are going to use a lot of that research in season two. How did you go about funneling all that into one hour of television, but also holding some of it back for season two? Stephen Markley, who's the novelist on the show, and Katie French, who was the story editor, were so helpful with the outline and helping to piece this whole thing together. It's a collaborative process when you break it out in the room. We have cards on the board and we're talking through everything. So by the time I was going to script, I felt very confident that I knew what the bigger pieces were. Then it was a matter of, 'What do you get rid of? What do you keep? How do you take something that might be a page of research and make it into a line, but sell it so that the audience feels it without having to be told what it is?' You prepare with a nice bunch of information and a plan before you even get in there. I understand you listened to recordings of similar tragic situations, like former President George W. Bush after 9/11 when he was on Air Force One, and after the Cuban Missile Crisis. How did all of that help inform the real-time reaction we saw in with President Cal Bradford (James Marsden) as the global tsunami was building? I have a grandfather who was an advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff who was there during the Cuban Missile Crisis. So as a kid, I was growing up around this Air Force colonel and a lot of his officer friends would come over for dinner parties. When they tell stories, you wouldn't hear national secrets, but you would hear about the tension and how personal issues that have nothing to do with the topics can get in the way of things. I tried to sprinkle some of that in, like when [in Paradise] the general is giving a briefing and the CIA guy keeps interrupting him; you can tell he's annoyed because clearly this guy does this all the time. Some of that was like a lifetime of research from being around an Air Force colonel that helped me feel the rhythms of what was going on, from hearing his stories about the Cuban Missile Crisis era. You filmed this episode with a propulsive pace, and without a lot of cuts. What were the longest scenes you filmed? John and Glenn, the directors, sat down and we talked about filming this almost as a play. Usually, you'll do a rehearsal and then people feel their blocking. If you think of the scene where Xavier's in the hallway and the secretary comes over to say, 'What do you know? What's going on?' Then suddenly, the vice president comes through and trips and stands up and you're in the room, and we go around the table. We shot that entire scene as a oner. We had it to keep that energy up — let's make these scenes so that we shoot them once without cutting, and then we'll do our coverage so we can pick stuff up. If you go back and watch that, there's 70 people involved! We actually let the studio know, 'You're going to see we're not rolling camera for a couple hours and that's because we're doing this process.' It was a ton of rehearsal and then shooting it was really fast, because everybody had it down. It was brilliant. It was their idea, and it was 100 percent right. Where was your White House set? We had the Oval office set, which I think was from 24. Sometimes you'll see evidence of where a set has been before. I worked on comedies a lot and every now and then there'd be an ancient room from I Love Lucy or Happy Days. So we had the Oval office and the area outside the Oval where the secretary sat. We built that next-door Oval office, the cabinet room, the hallway outside the cabinet room and the hallways that went the other way around the Oval. That was all on a sound stage. Then we went to a country club in Thousand Oaks that matched the feeling. It feels so grand, where Cal talks to the janitor in the big marble hallway. Then we shot the basement somewhere downtown. So it was all pieced together, which was a challenge of keeping up that same energy. The key is, you can't have the energy at a 10 in the first act. You have to have it build so when you're jumping all over the city to film, you can check in and keep up that intensity level. Xavier has this painful goodbye on the phone with his wife, Teri (Enuka Okuma), who he believes died in the event, and then he blows up at Cal over it in this flashback episode. Any notes or conversations with your main actors for those scenes? I was a mess writing that goodbye scene. You can't help but think about [your family]. The fact that my wife was up in Solvang and I'm down at home thinking, 'What if I got a call right now and this was it, and I knew it was it?' I remember adding that he could see the screen as the missile hit, and thinking, 'Fuck, he's going to have to watch his wife die while he's talking to her.' I was super emotional writing that. The other scene that was super emotional was Cal and Xavier fighting on the [airport] tarmac, where Cal is like, 'You know what to do' and Xavier is like, 'I don't know what to do.' Xavier, who always seems to know what to do, this is the only time he's ever said that, and you really get into his head. We shot that scene at Long Beach Airport; there's planes flying around and it's loud and chaotic, and there were so many extras. Everyone who wasn't on camera just stopped to watch, because it was that intense in person. The actors know they have it when they're looking over at me and John and Glenn at village and our eyes are glassy. It's like, 'Okay, they got it!' Let's talk about the nuclear football. How much of what Marsden explains was true… that there's a nuclear fail safe that can set the world's technology back 500 years? I don't know! I do know that my grandfather was at the Air Force when they were developing the football, and he had something to do with the football, and I will say that he would not divulge national secrets to me, but what he did say is the chilling thing that that thing can unilaterally launch a nuclear war. We did our research into what it is. And there's all this speculation, because really nobody knows — there are people who know, but it's not us. He was not awed by a lot. He fought in two wars and still had shrapnel that popped out of the top of his head every now and then. And he talked about that thing in a way that was like, 'There's something going on there that's bigger than I could possibly imagine.' While we were shooting this, there was a question about if some foreign government was testing an EMP [electromagnetic pulse] device in space. There's all this research that that was one of the early things they discovered and that there are EMP weapons, but the danger with an EMP is that if you light one off in Los Angeles, there are physical wires connecting things all around the world and you don't know where it's going. So it's a very dangerous thing and that got us to this idea of like, 'Well, if this is the last chance of survival, you wouldn't worry about what it might destroy.' But the answer is, I don't know. The flashback ends, and then we heard Sinatra's (Julianne Nicholson) version of what happened: That they avoided a nuclear holocaust, but their Paradise bunker still had the tech they needed. How much are we meant to ? Well, that's going to be a question for season two. Did it work? There seems to be some real evidence it worked, with this audio recording of Terry and other survivors. We've done a lot of research about what happens with an EMP, what it destroys. It basically can destroy most electronic things, but the most rudimentary things can be brought back. Like shortwave radio would probably be one of the first things that started to come back. Diesel engines are based on compression versus a spark. So people would know how to start to rebuild, and it seems there's evidence that people with know-how are starting to try to rebuild. If I had to guess based on what Sinatra said, not on any knowledge I have, she said it seems that it worked, at least partially. We witnessed a nuclear bomb go off and there seemed to be others that were hitting around the globe. But the question is: Did they all hit or was one of them averted, or was a handful of them averted? Well, this explains why there's no communication with the outside world, right? When they sent those four people out there, they didn't know anything. They didn't get their shortwave communications until they sent them out and put up their own shortwave to communicate with them. Then that's why Sinatra started hearing these radio signals. It seems like Cal should have been more suspicious of Sinatra earlier since he pushed that button on the nuclear football, which theoretically shut down every nuclear weapon in flight. Right. There's a power dynamic difference in episode seven when they're on the plane and he says to shoot Sinatra. Clearly between then and when we've met him [in present day], it shifted and he's lost that sense of power. So I think there were a lot of emotional things that went on between those people and everybody else in the time from when he pushed that button to when we meet up with him in Paradise world. Sinatra put Xavier in this ultimate blackmail situation, when she informed him that his wife is actually alive. How does this change him going into season two? On set, that was a scene where Sterling [as Xavier] had to put his weapon away, and he was wrestling with that. He was like, 'I would just fire the gun.' But John, our director, was like, 'You're Sterling K. Brown. Show us that on your face.' He told Sterling, 'Live in that, because that's what we've put you in. This impossible situation.' That to me was one of the most impressive moments of acting in the show, because you could feel him wrestle with that and then put his gun away. What happens when you've just tried to overthrow the government and you've succeeded, and now you have to back down? Dan told me about his three-season plan and that the end of season one would reveal enough to shift course so each season can be its own thing, but with the same characters. So, obviously the season one ending is setting up some . Would you say the finale raised a whole new set of questions to explore? One of the goals early on was that we wanted to make the viewing experience satisfying. That we're not just dangling things and then not answering them until the end of the season, or not answering at all. So you're going to get answers to what you want and then there are new questions raised. We were in a room breaking out [season two since before the official renewal] with this anticipation of, 'If goes well, you never know,' but we know where season two [ends]. Is there a reason you named the billionaire bunker project 'Versailles'? You always have a temporary name for something in the room. The librarian at one point, I made a joke that we should get Trent Reznor to play that, so that became a reference name. With Versailles, it sounded like a far away place where the rich would go, and there was a little bit of irony in that, so it sort of stuck. That it was a retreat for the billionaires, but also there's violence there, too. There were strange real-world parallels as the season was airing. Like how after President Donald Trump announced he wanted to declassify the JFK assassination files, had in an episode a line from James Marsden that the second he took office, he asked about the secrets: Bigfoot, JFK and aliens. It keeps happening on this show. When we first started talking about it, it was probably two and a half years ago. I remember feeling like, 'Are people going to buy that they're in a cave and there's a sky that looks real?' And then The Sphere [in Las Vegas] comes out and we talked to The Sphere people who said [Paradise] is based on 100 percent true science and you could do this. There were a bunch of things that keep mirroring reality. But for that particular one, I remember as a kid saying I want to run for president just so I can find out the secrets. That to me is the number one thing I would want day one as the president. Tell me everything. about how post-apocalyptic shows are usually in the far future, with zombies or something. But this show feels too close to tomorrow. Did it feel that way when filming? Yes. One of the things that was important for all of us is that the disaster wasn't one thing. It's a cascading series of events. This wave is going to kill all these people on the coasts, which is where a large percentage of the population is. But then it's going to black out the sky, and we did a lot of research into Krakatoa, which was a big explosive earthquake [in 1883]. That volcano actually had a sound wave that circled the globe eight times or something like that, a pressure wave. It was important for us that what happened in the show was real, but then also it's the human reaction and governmental reaction. So if the sky is blotted out, then one country would take a run for another country's resources to try to ensure their safety and before you know it, with all of our treaties, it would probably end in some kind of nuclear or regional war. That feels as real as it could possibly be, because the show is not just what happened. It's about how people react to what happened. That's where it gets messy. There are things that are going to happen naturally on the planet, but it's how we react to it that's so frightening. Amid global warming and climate change, this show tells us that the rich and the elite can survive. had a line about how the West Wing is stocked to feed those it could save for eternity. It who gets saved and who doesn't, which is interesting in this current moment in time. My grandfather had a tour in the Greenbrier Inn in West Virginia. You can now go tour it if you want, but it was the bunker to keep the government going in a nuclear war. The plan was that the government would all get on trains — all of Congress — but then you go in there and it's a bunker. They had a press room and hid the doors to close it off in plain sight. These bank vault doors. And my grandpa's job for a little was that he would be the person in charge of operations to get everybody in and out. But his job was then to close the door — and be on the other side of it. I visited that place and I've always thought about that. Who's in and who's out? He would have been like that guy who Xavier shoots on the side of the helicopter. Exactly! That realization of, 'Oh, you don't get to come in.' And he was fully aware of it. He said it was great during drills, because he wasn't in the bunker, he would get to stay at this fancy hotel. That part was nice. In reality, it wouldn't be nice. I grew up hearing this and my mom said when she was a teenager that he had the weight of the world on his shoulders because he was aware how real all this is. There are people who were doing everything to protect, and you can't protect everybody. The line has to go somewhere, and that's the crazy thing. Well, President Cal does the right thing in the end. He tells the truth. It creates chaos, but he tells the truth. We've been talking a lot lately about television capturing our current post-truth era. What do you hope people take away from President Bradford? I like that moment where he says that people are inherently decent. That's what he's seen, and he's speaking to all of us as like, 'Let's lean on our best version of ourselves.' You like to think that every president is going to wrestle with and tell the truth. Sometimes my guess is it's too dangerous to tell 100 percent of the truth. You have to hope that humanity comes through. Cal is playing someone who's got a big heart and really is trying to do the right thing, and even he got sucked into it. It took that interaction with that janitor to be like, 'This isn't right. I can't do this' to snap out of it. With any administration, it's like, when does the humanity of it make you make the decisions that are in the best interest of people? This is a fictional president. You don't even know what his party is, and we're trying to not make it about that. It's really about the people and the decisions being in power, what do you do? And the weight of power. But also, Xavier's wrestling with the same thing when he's lying to that secretary about being able to help her. It's healthy to explore that. It's easy to look at the people up above making selfish decisions. But then we put Xavier in that position, too. He's not telling 100 percent of the truth either. We wanted it to feel real and messy. What can you say about the murder-mystery reveal and how the season ended to set up season two? Having worked in comedies for so long, you don't have to worry about the mystery of it all. When I was first talking about this show with Dan, because this show has a little bit of This is Us in it, with its real heart, but also that apocalyptic thing like The Last of Us, my joke was that I started calling this show This Is the Last of Us. *** Paradise is now streaming on Hulu. Catch up on THR's season one coverage. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Studio': 30 Famous Faces Who Play (a Version of) Themselves in the Hollywood-Based Series 22 of the Most Shocking Character Deaths in Television History A 'Star Wars' Timeline: All the Movies and TV Shows in the Franchise Solve the daily Crossword
Newsweek
3 days ago
- Newsweek
For Sterling K. Brown, Hulu's 'Washington Black' Seeks Black Joy, Not Pain
Hulu Original Series 'Washington Black' stars Ernest Kingsley Junior and Sterling K. Brown. Hulu Original Series 'Washington Black' stars Ernest Kingsley Junior and Sterling K. Brown. James Pardon/Disney "Your legacy isn't just the work that you do, it's the opportunities that you create for other people." —Sterling K. Brown. For Sterling K. Brown, part of the appeal of producing and starring in Hulu's Washington Black (July 23) was mentoring Ernest Kingsley Jr., the young actor playing the title character. "If I'm in a position where I can help somebody get an opportunity to do it, that means a lot to me, because your legacy isn't just the work that you do, it's the opportunities that you create for other people," Brown said. Based on the bestselling novel, Kingsley plays George Washington "Wash" Black, a young boy who escapes slavery and, through his scientific mind, sets off an unexpected adventure. Brown plays Medwin, whose life intersects with Wash. "It seems most Black stories that are for mainstream consumption have to do with Black pain, have to do with Black trauma," Brown said. "So I thought, how awesome would it be to take this historical context but to still illuminate, [and] highlight, joy, hope, faith, love, etc." And for Kingsley, the story has broad appeal—"that universal story of us going through that harrowing narrative and pain in our past and triumphing over it." SUBSCRIBE TO THE PARTING SHOT WITH H. ALAN SCOTT ON APPLE PODCASTS OR SPOTIFY AND WATCH ON YOUTUBE Editor's Note: This conversation has been edited and condensed for publication. Sterling, you can always take top billing, but for this project you're supporting and producing. What about this inspired you to want to make it? Sterling K. Brown: It was the central character. It was a young boy who finds himself in the midst of slavery, but through the power of his imagination, of his hope, of his faith, is able to transcend his circumstances. And it's also the community that protected his dreams, right? Recognizing the power and importance of dreamers and how dreaming is contagious. I think that's why, oftentimes dreamers are sort of snuffed out and taken out, and why people need to protect them, because they recognize that, like so many of us, [they] are just trying to survive, or just trying to make it from day to day to day, until you come into the presence of a dreamer, and they say life is bigger than what you can currently imagine. And if you follow me, I can show you something bigger. That's who Washington is, and I've never seen that in the historical context of slavery, not allowing slavery to define who he is as a person, but allowing his creativity to be fully manifested and ultimately be like this brilliant creator, the seeker of love and beauty everywhere that he goes, and bringing that contagion with him. Pursued by Willard, Wash faces a life-altering choice. Meanwhile, tensions are on the rise between Tanna and McGee and Young Wash and Titch's Arctic journey, forces Young Wash to forge his own path forward. From... Pursued by Willard, Wash faces a life-altering choice. Meanwhile, tensions are on the rise between Tanna and McGee and Young Wash and Titch's Arctic journey, forces Young Wash to forge his own path forward. From Hulu's Washington Black. More Disney/Chris Reardon That's one of the things that I think I was so pleasantly moved by the story is that so often, when it comes to depictions of slavery in film and television, joy and hope are often not necessarily part of the story. And those stories are very important to tell. But I loved the aspect of hope that this story has. Brown: It was very important to me. Interesting enough, this project came to me before American Fiction. But American Fiction actually talks a lot about how it seems most of Black stories that are for mainstream consumption have to do with Black pain, have to do with Black trauma, right? So I thought, how awesome would it be to take this historical context but to still illuminate [and] highlight, joy, hope, faith, love, etc. And Ernest, taking on this role, the title role, that's a lot this early in your career. Did you feel the pressure of the title role? And how did you go about finding your version of Washington? Ernest Kingsley Jr.: Of course. Look, I did feel some pressure. It was quickly dissipated by the cast around me, the community around me, and someone like Sterling as well, who's been such a mentor and a friend and a brother. He definitely was showing me the ropes all along. I was really being supported by the talent and the love and care by our cast and crew. And in terms of research, I guess to start off with, definitely reading the book. The show kind of branches off from it. Reading the book was a great foundation for me, just to kind of initially get into the world of Washington Black and the epicness and the journey and the story, and then obviously, going deeper into other things and the time period. But it was definitely the book that launched me into it. WASHINGTON BLACK – 'St. George and the Dragon' – Young Wash and Titch evade capture, finding allies, threats, and shocking truths about Titch's family. In Halifax, Tanna's attempt to derail her engagement complicates her ties... WASHINGTON BLACK – 'St. George and the Dragon' – Young Wash and Titch evade capture, finding allies, threats, and shocking truths about Titch's family. In Halifax, Tanna's attempt to derail her engagement complicates her ties to Wash and Goff. As Wash's aquarium impresses Goff, danger looms, testing loyalty amid shifting ambitions. More Disney/Chris Reardon Even though this is a work of fiction, it does really illuminate part of Black history that not a lot of people know much about. Black pirates, for example. Was there any part of this history that you learned something from? Brown: I love the Dahomey, which also is echoed in [The] Woman King. I loved the sort of throughline of the Afro Nova Scotian community that we've discovered in Halifax, right? And I've worked in Charleston, South Carolina, on a TV show called Army Wives, for a long time and the Gullah accent [also called Geechee] I found very peculiarly in Halifax, Nova Scotia. And I was like, "You guys sound like you're from South Carolina." "No, we don't sound like we're from South Carolina. We're from up here." And I'm like, "Whoa, what are you talking about, man?" And it's sort of like the accent that Medwin uses, because I thought that 50 percent of all Africans that entered into the United States came through a port in South Carolina called Sullivan's Island, right? And so for me to hear that accent when I went to Halifax was this incredible moment, like, "Oh, wow. We really did make it." This underground railroad is not something that I just heard about. I see the evidence of it here in Nova Scotia while we're shooting on location. It was a magical moment for me. And Ernest, what about you? Did you learn anything about this history? Kingsley: I think Sterling kind of touched on it, the Afro Nova Scotia community. Obviously, we see how Medwin has really upheld and built that community at the time, but also just going there and filming and realizing that they'd been there for nearly seven generations. And just seeing the community they've built and how close-knit and tight they are, against all odds, against when they first arrived there, all those generations ago, they were given kind of terrible land, the unfertile land, and what they built from that, what they did, and they're still there in abundance. Just getting introduced to that kind of culture and community was really cool. There are also aspects of the characters in this that we so often don't see, particularly Black characters in science, space, flying, all of those things. Was it important to you for these characters to be doing things that, historically in entertainment, we've often only seen white characters do. Brown: Man, you're making my heart just crack open in the most beautiful way possible, because there is an active erasure of our history going on in the United States right now. To make it sound as if we just didn't exist. And there is no American history without Black history. And there's also a de-emphasis of our history of creativity, of innovation, of invention, right? And so, in order to put that on the screen, hopefully people will reverse engineer and be like, "You know what? I know it's a work of historical fiction, but what is the history of Black entrepreneurship, invention, creativity?" Because there's so much that we've done, but that's not highlighted for such a long time, especially as a young person growing up in the States, the idea of being smart and being cool was sort of seen as an anathema. They didn't cross over with each other, especially in the Black community, actively putting something on screen that shows a very, very cool, passionate, loving man who's so smart, who's so imaginative, who's so creative. I had a professor tell me once that Black history is American history, you can't really separate the two. But Ernest, for you, as someone who isn't American yet you're telling this uniquely American story, what was it like for you processing how this story is told? Kingsley: To be really honest, it's quite like universal in terms of the Black, British and American [experiences]. I feel like that universal story of us going through that harrowing narrative and pain in our past and triumphing over it. And also, just the thing of us not getting the credit for our inventions and beautiful things we've done spans across, unfortunately, history across the world. And so it was touching the core of the experience that is universal for us. And I think the thing about seeing this Black boy and him getting the visibility—obviously his credit is stolen, but like the visibility—just the narrative and seeing him build this invention, build this thing with his creativity. There's something about being seen and seeing that on a screen, as opposed to—like you were saying—you see a very common narrative of certain people do certain things, we don't see Black people in sci-fi, but you see that in the story. And it's like, that's evidence, and that's permission. So, yeah, it was really cool. To that, what is really powerful about Washington's experience is every time he looks to the sky and hopes or dreams. The power of the sky and stars in Black history, in spirituals, in the work of Harriet Tubman, it's really powerful. Brown: It does make sense, right? Because if you look just in your immediate circumstances, you may just see fields and places where you've labored throughout the day. And so the escape is the sky, right? Like sky is the limit, sky is the possibility, because it doesn't represent anything that's immediately around you. It's like, at least there's some expanse, there's space, there's distance, possibility exists up here. Reality is here [on land], possibility is there, right? Even with regards to Wash and the water, he's never gone into the ocean and didn't know how to swim, and then ultimately, my man had to throw you into the water, because the water also represents possibility. It's the unexplored, right? We've explored this part. Where can I go to be free, where can I go to be fully realized, right? And then you have a young boy who goes into the water and learns how to fly. Sterling, it seems like you've had one big project after another these past few years, picking up an Oscar nomination along the way. Do you not like taking breaks? And what is it that makes you want to keep producing projects like this? Brown: Thank you. That's very kind. There is a part of you that feels like you want to strike while the iron is hot. There is a part of you that feels like, "Oh, you know what? If you don't do something, then maybe they'll forget about you." Easy come, easy go sort of thing. I do take breaks. Like, I still assistant coach my son's NFL flag football team. I see my other son play soccer all the time. I take little breaks for myself, but I try to structure it in such a way [that] the TV show that I get a chance to do in the states keeps me at home for about half the year, and then I have the other half a year to play around with. And it's been a good formula for me, because my family knows where I am most of the time, and then I still have space to sort of scratch the creative itch inside of me, to just do something different. Variety is the spice of life, and I'm so fortunate H. Alan, in an industry that is undergoing a massive contraction; to be busy and people want to work with me that I feel like I should take advantage of this, because not a lot of people are having these opportunities. It's a blessing. WASHINGTON BLACK – 'If You See My Mama, Whisper Her This…' – In Morocco, Wash reunites with Titch and uncovers his father's true legacy. With Tanna, he journeys to his homeland on the Wind Sailer.... WASHINGTON BLACK – 'If You See My Mama, Whisper Her This…' – In Morocco, Wash reunites with Titch and uncovers his father's true legacy. With Tanna, he journeys to his homeland on the Wind Sailer. A dreamscape reunion provides answers to the past, as Wash's family embarks on a new horizon. More Disney/James Van Evers What does it mean for you to mentor someone like Ernest? Considering that you could have easily produced a project for yourself in the title role. Brown: Sometimes you see people try to make that part their part. I was like, "No, it's not my part." But if I'm in a position where I can help somebody, where it is their part, get an opportunity to do it, that means a lot to me, because your legacy isn't just the work that you do, it's the opportunities that you create for other people, and hopefully just make it a little bit easier. That's all you're trying to do. The people that come behind you, you want it to be just a little bit easier, right? I stand on the shoulders of Denzel [Washington], who stands on James Earl [Jones], who stands on Paul Robeson, like there is a legacy here of performance, and each one of those dudes made it a little bit easier for me. And hopefully I get a chance to do the same. And for you, Ernest, it's so rare for someone your age to have this kind of mentorship. What is it like for you to have this support? Kingsley: I don't think there's enough words that I could use to describe the level of gratitude. The level of support and love and care that Sterling has poured into me from when I was 21—I'm 24 now—has been second to none. The last three years, he's been nothing but support, like a pillar. We've seen how this industry can be, especially with the strikes and stuff, and it's not lost on me how rare it is to have that kind of support system with a star that Sterling is a gift, it's an absolute blessing. I'm really grateful.
New York Times
3 days ago
- New York Times
‘Washington Black' Is a Defiantly Joyful Fable
As the opening scenes of 'Washington Black' come into view, the narrator Sterling K. Brown tells viewers that what's about to unfold is 'the story of a boy brave enough to change the world.' In the sweeping 19th-century adventure that follows, the wide-eyed, kindhearted George Washington Black, a.k.a. Wash, escapes the Barbados sugar plantation where he has been enslaved since birth, finds freedom and romance in Canada and uses his keen intellect to make marvelous scientific breakthroughs. The eight-part series, based on Esi Edugyan's acclaimed 2018 novel of the same name, debuts Wednesday on Hulu. As the saga bounces back and forth in time, Wash (played by Eddie Karanja) as a boy and by Ernest Kingsley Jr. as a young man) hones his prodigious artistic talents with help from Christopher Wilde (Tom Ellis), a white scientist who facilitates the boy's escape from bondage. Wash learns crucial lessons about the world — and his socially precarious place in it — as he soars through the air in a fantastical flying machine, sails the Caribbean Sea with pirates, rides a dog sled through the Arctic tundra and dodges a relentless bounty hunter hired by his former enslaver. Brown's production company, Indian Meadows Productions, secured the rights to the novel in 2019 and the show's creator, Selwyn Seyfu Hinds, set about transforming the transcontinental coming-of-age tale for the screen. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
